Itchy Doggy

It's the time of the year that Tyson's seasonal allergies flare up. He's been modeling the stylish cone-head & black booties look this fall so he doesn't make any raw spots on his skin when he scratches himself. Poor guy - he looks so pathetic!



Tyson never had any allergy problems when we lived back in Toronto. Here in Connecticut there is just so much more green space that the pollen count must be much higher. But too much green space is a good problem to have, especially as far as my frisbee-obsessed dog is concerned.

I find it mildly amusing that Tyson has allergies. When I was growing up I begged and pleaded for a dog, but my parents told me that we couldn't get one because I was allergic. And now I have a dog (and am not allergic to him in the slightest) but he has allergies. Go figure!

Labour Day Weekend

Christopher and I spent our Labour Day weekend in Canada this year, as opposed to enjoying the Labor Day festivities in the US.

We enjoyed at low-key relaxing weekend back in Burlington/Oakville. As usual, I tried to hit up as many of my favourite eats while there. I stuffed myself with enough dim sum, Swiss Chalet, and congee/noodles to stave off the cravings until our next trip back home. And we happily found a new congee place, Congee Dynasty in Mississauga, which is closer and way less busy than our usual Congee Wong.

One highlight of the trip (other than spending time with our respective families & inlaws of course) was our trip to Waterloo to see M & C's new baby J. When we saw him, J was only 17 days old, so he's now at the top of the leaderboard for the youngest baby we have ever visited. He was so tiny (but very healthy and gaining weight every day), that both Christopher and I declined the offer to hold him for fear that we might do some permanent and irreversible damage. Besides, everyone knows babies can smell fear and there is no doubt that as soon as he was in our arms that he would be screaming at his parents for letting such incapable baby-minders handle him.

While enjoying some sun & sushi on a patio I was paid a surprise visit by my old university friend K. She was in town from Vancouver for a wedding that weekend and was heading back the next day. It was too bad that we couldn't have coordinated ourselves better to have a proper visit, but since we both live far from home we understand how hard it is to fit all our obligations into a brief trip. But nonetheless, it was wonderful to see & hug her in person and remind ourselves that we should do a better job of staying in touch.

Boys Weekend

This past weekend Christopher's friend G who is in Boston for a 2-week business trip came out to visit us for the weekend.

As boys like to do when they get together, we consumed copious amounts of meat at the local eat-all-you-can churrascaria. And then they headed out to check out the new MGM Grand at Foxwoods and play some poker.

A fun time was had by all - the boys returned home a little "less rich" than they were at the beginning of the evening, but were still in good spirits.

Olympic Fever

Christopher and I have Olympic Fever! Ever since we recorded the Opening Ceremonies on our DVR and watched the whole thing from beginning to end, we have been tuning in every night. If you add up all the Olympic viewing I have done in my entire life up until Beijing, I don't think it would total to half as much as I have watched of these games so far (and there are still 4 days left).


I think there are three main contributing factors to our increase in Olympic viewership:

• USA: we now live in the US and the US Olympic team got off to a great start in these games (thanks to Michael Phelps!)


• HDTV: for me sports is meant for viewing in HD. And now that we have a new HDTV, we find ourselves watching different programming than before. If something is only offered in a 4:3 SD format, there is a good chance we won't be watching it. If it's upconverted SD, we'll consider it ;)


• Time Difference: with live events being broadcasted every night right around prime time, we can't help but tune in. And if we needed any more excuses to stay up later than we already do - the Olympics would be a pretty good one. Me: Please Christopher, I'll go to bed as soon as Rogers/Dalhausser finish this match

There certainly has been lots of excitement during these games - Dara Torres, Michael Phelps, Nastia Liukin, & Shawn Johnson to name a few. Most recently we've been rather entertained by Usain Bolt's antics on the track. I wonder if we'll ever get to see this guy actually break a sweat!

Work Hard Play Hard

This weekend Christopher and I put our carpentry skills to the test and built a railing for the steps up to our front porch. Our insurance company had identified the lack of railing as a potential exposure and it is also against the building codes for our town. So after putting it off for several months Christopher hit up the lumber yard for some wood and I borrowed a miter saw from a friend at work.

Here are the results of our handiwork:

Before: no railing

Back Porch Railing: our goal was to match this

After: completed railing - just needs a coat of paint

And to reward ourselves for our hard work, we hit the beach on Sunday :)

And here is our truly finished railing, after two coats of paint:

Fascinating isn't it - but we're just so proud! You always remember your first :)

Barter

Every once in awhile I peruse Craigslist for our area to see if there is anything interesting available. For the first time, I decided to check out the 'Barter' classifieds.

I couldn't help but find it humorous that the listings were looking for such specific items as well as what was being offered for trade. For example:

• snowboard, guitar & Xbox360 for golf equipment/PS3 bundle
• tattoos/body piercings for fishing equipment & guns
• commercial grade slushie machine for utility trailer
  
• tandem bike for moped or tandem kayak
• almost new lawn tractor for reliable car

It just seems so inefficient to me, but I have never bartered before so maybe I am missing something here. I mean, wouldn't it be easier to list these items for sale on Craigslist to get money so they can purchase whatever they are looking for? I am sure it is possible to find a match for these exchanges, but if I traded in my reliable car for an almost new lawn tractor it would certainly take me a long time to get to work!!

The Rez

Just around the corner from our house are 6 water reservoirs located in 3,000 acres of beautiful forested land, with hiking trails and bike paths.

Because it is so convenient you would think that we would have visited the Reservoir at least a dozen times since we moved here. Like many things worthy of procrastination, a trip to the "The Rez" fell into this category. 'We can go any time' we told ourselves, the trees aren't going anywhere.

But driving home from work today it was such a beautiful day that I decided to find out what we were missing. So we strapped on Tyson's new red backpack and treated him to a bonus walk. And a great time was had by all - we'll definitely be back!

Nancy Scissorhands

This weekend I trimmed about 175ft of hedges in our front and back yard. Usually I do this in two separate weekends, but I decided to tough it our and just get it done in one. Boy were my arms tired from holding the hedge trimmer up high above my head.

Before

After

All my hard work was appreciated when we had our neighbors over for drinks on Sunday evening and we could see out from our front porch.

The Irony of Blogging

Yes it has been awhile since I have updated this blog. I am going to use the excuse that I was "too busy". And isn't that the great irony of blogging? When you have lots of stuff going on in your life, you just don't have a spare minute to sit down and document it. Or that's the excuse anyways!

Well I am back now on the wagon now and going to make a more concerted effort to update the blog with all the fun an exciting things going on in my life - and write some posts to fill in the 5.5 month gap.

PS. Thanks to all of you that voted for Tyson in the Bissell contest. He didn't come anywhere close to winning but don't worry, I still love him just the same! I was shocked to see how many pets were entered into the Bissell contest, ~3000 each week?!? It's nice to see so many well loved animals out there!

Ricotta Salata

I am addicted to a new cheese called Ricotta Salata.

After catching the "Italian Picnic" episode of Everyday Italian on the Food Network (because I am a picnicking fiend), I wanted to try making the main dish of Orzo with Sausage, Peppers, and Tomatoes, since orzo is one of my favorite pastas and who doesn't like sausage!

Note - I am not sure if I agree with the folks at Food Network for classifying this dish as "picnic-fare" since it is served hot, but it's quite tasty nonetheless.


This dish calls for ricotta salata, a salty crumbly cheese that I would describe as an Italian version of feta. Now like feta, I get the impression that ricotta salata is mostly used to finish off a dish. But, much like feta - I love sneaking cubes of it all on its own!! I found it it my regular grocery store, which is nice since I don't have to make a dedicated trip to a specialty store to find it, but dangerous at the same time as I could eat an entire block in a week's time :)

Tyson's New Trick

To celebrate Canada Day & Independence Day we decided to take the week off and head home to visit family & friends. We had a busy social calendar with Chris's dad's retirement party, my cousin's son's 1 year birthday party, my uncle's 80th birthday party and the requisite Canada Day trip to our friend S's cottage.

It is at the cottage that we often end up teaching Tyson a new trick. It was here that he had his first swim in open water when he was only a few months old. Dog + cottage = hours of entertainment :)

Here is a video of Tyson's new trick:

Guanella Pass

This week I was visiting some customers in Cheyenne & Denver. Nothing very exciting - in fact I find Cheyenne so boring! I did meet up with another coworker when I was in Denver and we managed to sneak in a drive up to the mountains since it was his first time to Denver and he had never been up in the Rockies before.

We stopped at a Starbucks along the highway and the barista recommended that we take a drive up to Guanella Pass. Here are some pics along the way:

Cruisin'

When I go to visit potential customers I often spend most of my time in their super air-conditioned lab filled with racks and racks of equipment. And if I have forgotten to bring a sweater with me I almost always leave with a cold.

This time I was lucky enough to be visiting a Disney cruise ship in Florida! I most certainly enjoyed the balmy weather and taking a relaxing walk on the beach just behind my hotel. At the end of my visit a crew member was even kind enough to give me a little tour of some of the non-passenger areas of the ship. Not really as nice as the passenger areas, but still interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes!

Note the blue skies and the palm trees - aaah :)

NYY vs. TOR

For his graduation present I bought Christopher a pair of tickets to see the Blue Jays vs. Yankees game. Neither of us has been to Yankee Stadium and since this is the last season it was now or never.

School's Out For-ever!

This weekend we celebrated Christopher's graduation from the LLM program at UConn. Congratulations sweetie pie!

The ceremony was in a huge tent set up on the soccer field at the law school. Afterwards the LLM students and their family & guests were invited to a nice luncheon reception at a tasty churrascaria nearby.

Both his parents and my parents came down for the ceremony, so our house was full, but a good time was had by all.

Fried Chicken

I don't want to start any fights with anyone's momma, but I just had the best fried chicken I have ever tasted in my entire life. And it was in Washington DC, cooked by a Frenchman!

Now in my defense, I have never eaten fried chicken in the Southern US so perhaps I have no real basis of comparison (and KFC certainly does not count). But nonetheless, this was probably one of the tastiest meals I have ever eaten! Honestly, I was dreaming of this chicken for weeks after tasting it and if it hadn't been my last night in DC I would have gone right back the next day and ordered it up again.

Central is the name of the restaurant - Michel Richard is the chef. And at $21 the fried chicken with mustard sauce, which comes with whipped potatoes (that taste like an entire stick of butter is melted in them) and a side salad with a light vinagrette, is a STEAL!

When the waitress came to clear my plate, she asked me if I enjoyed my meal. I told her it was unreal how good it was and asked her if she has had it before. She told me that it's the only thing she eats there because it was the first thing she had and she loved it so much.

PS. I also hit up the Amsterdam Falafelshop for some delicious falafel-filled pita while I was in DC. I went out of my way for a second one on my way to the airport and it made me late for my flight home. But it was worth it - yes I am a glutton!

Vote for Tyson!

For those of you who have not had the opportunity to meet him, this is my dog Tyson.

He's a Goldendoodle - half Golden Retriever and half Standard Poodle and I love him to pieces. He is so sweet and very entertaining. I really couldn't ask for a better dog.

I entered him in Bissell's MVP pet photo contest and would love for you to vote for him: http://www.bissell.com/redirect.asp?page_id=47081&Pet=10116

Wouldn't you buy the Bissell Pet Hair Eraser vacuum with this smiling cute face on the package? I would!

Florida 2008

After Vegas we headed to Florida to enjoy the condo that Chris's parents rent each January in Longboat Key. Last year I was sick as a dog during our visit. This year after several late nights of Texas Hold 'Em in Vegas Chris was the one who needed some R 'n R.

During our week-long visit I finished a really great book that Chris's mom gave me for Christmas, The Other Boleyn Girl. I have already put the follow-on books on hold at our local library, and I can't wait to see the movie!
We also enjoyed some wonderful food. Some notables were: Chocolate croissants from the C'est La Vie cafe in downtown Sarasota, soft-shelled crab at Barnacle Bill's, and the Star Fish Company for grouper sandwiches and fried oysters.

Christopher's parents have quite the social circle down in Florida. One of their friends is a volunteer at the Mote Aquarium and on a rainy afternoon he took us on our own personally-guided tour. I was really impressed with the variety of the exhibits and actually took some pics (which is rare for me, but I am trying to train myself to take more pictures of things).

Hoover Dam!

Unlike the Grand Canyon, Christopher and I had both seen Hoover Dam prior to this trip. So we didn't feel the need to stop, other than to take this one picture:

Grand Canyon

After CES we decided to check out the Grand Canyon since neither of had ever seen it. Chris actually thought he had already been, but upon later confirmation from his parents that turns out to be untrue. Interestingly enough his brother thought the same thing, even recalling identical memories of cave-dwellings.

The Grand Canyon was absolutely spectacular. Way larger than I imagined and words and even pictures cannot do justice to its beauty. Since it was January it was very cold at night, but it warmed up during the daytime. However, the tops of the trails into the canyon were covered with ice and snow and the guides recommended crampons. But then he asked us where we were from and when we told him Connecticut he said that we'd be okay without them. I can only imagine what he would have said if we told him we were Canadian!

We did the South Kaibab Trail day hike down to Cedar Ridge. We were totally unprepared. Not only did we not have crampons, but both of us had on sneakers and I was carrying my purse! In my purse were a couple of granola bars, half a tube of pizza flavoured Pringles (my fave), and one small bottle of water. Definitely poor planning on our part, but at least it was wintertime. If it was summer we would have been in trouble!

CES 2008

Every job has its perks. One of the perks of my job is that I get to go to Las Vegas for 3-4 weeks each calendar year. It's kinda crazy when you add up how much time I spend there - good thing I don't have a gambling addiction!

R2D2 remote-controllable webcams and projectors

This year, my division was exhibiting at the Consumer Electronics Show and I got to attend. And since Christopher's winter semester doesn't start until January 23rd, I thought it would be nice to bring him along in celebration of his 30th birthday.

I saw lots of neat things at the show - too many to list really. The Creative Technology booth was a frenzy of activity as they had some pretty good giveaways. I saw two guys battle it out on Guitar Hero on Expert level and was thoroughly impressed. They also had a professional gamer on their booth beating the pants off everyone even though he as playing handicapped (one hand, with 75% of his screen covered, etc.) At the Sony booth they had Sony-BMG artists in for live performances and I got to take in a Natasha Beddingfield concert one afternoon. That was a fun treat.

Larger than life Transformer on the Dolby booth

It was funny seeing little independent vendors selling their plastic Wii controller accessories or CD scratch removing tonic next to behemoth CE companies like HP, Samsung, & LG. And gaming chairs - there were SO MANY booths selling gaming chairs. There is no way to decorate a nice room around a gaming chair - it is not possible.

Ringing in the New Year

While we were driving back to Connecticut after spending the holidays back in the motherland I decided that this would be the perfect year to ring in the New Year in Times Square. The animals were being watched by family members back home in anticipation of our upcoming trip to Las Vegas and vacation in Florida. And weather-wise you really couldn't ask for anything better in December- high of 42 F and no wind or precipitation.

When I shared my great idea with Christopher he seemed less than thrilled (he was just getting over a cold and is not fond of crowds). But, being the good sport that he is and seeing how excited I was about it, he got online and managed to pull off a Priceline miracle - $205 for the Hyatt at Grand Central Station, only a few blocks from Times Square!

So we took the train into the city and walked over to the hotel to drop off our stuff and meet up with my friend M who was also planning to hit Times Square for NYE. We worked our way through the various checkpoints, debated the differences between handbags and purses (handbags are not allowed into Times Square for New Year's but a purse is...), and then stopped for a slice of pizza and our last bathroom break of the night before joining the revelers in the "pen" at 51st and Broadway.

I really enjoyed the experience of spending New Year's in Times Square. It's one of those things that I've always wanted to do. That being said, there is a reason why everyone else we met that evening had never done NYE in Times Square before. There is also a reason why we were glad that we hadn't driven all the way from Washington State to be there that evening, like a couple of others in our pen.

Animal Antics

Immediately after Christopher replaced his laptop keyboard with the new one I gave him as an "Advent Present" (see previous post) the cat suddenly decided that this would be her new favourite perch. She had never sat on his old laptop keyboard before.


Bizarre - does anyone else's cat do this?

Advent Presents

For Christmas and his birthday this year I am treating Christopher to a trip to Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon & Florida in January. This left me with nothing to leave him under the tree for Christmas morning. And for someone like me who LOVES to buy gifts for people I was completely distressed.

So I decided that I would surprise him with Advent Presents (they're not Christmas presents). Starting on December 1st through the 25th, everyday I presented Christopher with a little something. Nothing fancy since I had promised him that I wouldn't spend any more money on him over the holidays. But just a little treat - here is the list:

1. Advent calendar
2. Double chocolate muffins
3. Set of drill bits
4. Caprese salad (his favourite)
5. New keyboard for his laptop
6. Chocolate chip granola bars
7. Pizza from Harry's Pizza, the best pizza joint in West Hartford
8. Gift card for a Java Chip Frappuccino from Starbucks
9. Shoelaces (to replace the one he had broken the day before)
10. White cake with chocolate chips & chocolate icing
11. Rubber feet for the laptop (to prevent it from sliding off the table)
12. Winter gloves
13. Dark chocolate bar
14. Tickets to Warren Miller's Playground
15. 3 new shirts from Jos. A. Bank (they were having a Christmas door-crasher and I couldn't help myself - they were such an amazing deal)
16. Dinner from his favourite wing place
17. 25 ft. RCA cable to connect his subwoofer with (handmade by yours truly!)
18. New Order CD - Singles
19. Ski gloves
20. Gift card for a McDonald's hot fudge sundae
21. IOU for FATBURGER in Las Vegas
22. UCONN hoodie
23. IOU for pizza @ Grimmaldi's in Las Vegas (supposedly the best around)
24. Book (Now I Can Die in Peace) by Bill Simmons (aka ESPN's Sportsguy, one of his favourite sports columnists)
25. Wii rental for 5 days + 2 games to entertain us over the holidays. This sure was a hit with my cousin's kids!

Trees

Trees are nice to look at and picnic under. But it wasn't until we moved into this home that we realized how much work they are!

Raking: Never in my life have I raked so many leaves! Every weekend in the fall both Christopher and I would spend an entire day raking leaves. You have to in order to stay on top of things. I think this fall we must have raked enough leaves to fill 80-100 30 gallon yard waste bags. At an average of 30lb per bag (they are to hold a maximum of 60 lb each) that's 1.6-2 tons!

DISH: Tired of over-paying for cable, when we moved we decided to give satellite a try. However the large trees on our property have precluded this for us. The installation guy was up on our roof trying to find the signal, but had no luck. Comcast owns us!

Arborists: The trees on our lot were in desperate need of trimming since they had been neglected for many years before we came along to give them some TLC. These arborists don't come cheap: two guys + 1 chipper = $1000 for a day's work.

Branches: After an evening of freezing rain, a very large tree branch broke off and crashed through our phone and cable lines. We're lucky it didn't take out our electricity! Kudos to AT&T and Comcast for getting everything back up and running within 48hrs though. I thought it would have taken longer.

Mouse Hole for Cat

This weekend's special project was to cut a hole in our basement door for the cat. We used to leave the door ajar for her, but our basement seriously lacks insulation. So we need to keep the door shut to keep the hot air upstairs and the cold air down (I'm trying to pre-empt a potential heart attack from an oil bill for $1000!). However her litter box and food is in the basement, thus our need for the mouse hole.

I borrowed a jig saw from a coworker of mine (thanks A) and we went to work. For my first time using a jig saw, I think I did a pretty good job (especially since we didn't have any scrap wood to practise on).



Bango really likes her door. She likes to hide behind the door peeking out from behind the opening. It took all of 5 minutes and a half-dozen Whiskas Temptations Savory Salmon treats and she was trained. Smart kitty!

Next I'm going to work on making a little flap for the hole with the cutout wood for further energy savings. Now I'm putting my handiness to the test!

Giving Thanks

Since we live (sorry USCBP - "temporarily reside") in the US we now celebrate Thanksgiving in November instead of October. Oddly enough, we have spent every American Thanksgiving in Canada though. But you're supposed to spend this holiday with family and friends we headed North since that's where ours are.

Each year our list of things to be thankful for grows a little longer. Hera are two new additions for 2007:

• NY Bar Exam: props to Christopher for passing the NY Bar Exam this summer (Christopher - I don't say it nearly enough, but I'm super proud of you. I have no idea how you have the patience to memorize even half of those crazy Bar/Bri mnemonics). Is it really effective to expend precious brainpower trying to remember the made-up mnemonic AND all the rules themselves? I guess if you spend enough time griping about how ass-backwards it all is, something ends up sticking in your brain.
• Friends with Toys: since we don't have a system of our own, we have to leech off of our friends with the latest toys. On Thursday night after dinner at the pub we kept S up way past his bedtime (on a school night!) playing Halo 3 on Xbox Live. And after the 3 hours of Rockband we played with M & C on Saturday night we couldn't stop talking about investing in a system of our own!

Hoagie Haven

I am a huge fan of the independent sub shop. I think it started with the heated corned beef subs I would scarf down after my Saturday morning French lessons at Alliance Francais on the way to my piano lesson. (Don't laugh - this was my Saturday routine for 12 years of my childhood. Which meant that my Friday evenings were spent doing French homework and trying to cram a week's worth of piano practising into one night.)

Back in Toronto I satisfied my sub cravings with Belly Buster (on Yonge, just north of Lawrence). The past 3 weeks I have been travelling to Princeton, NJ for work (which has a surprisingly charming downtown in fact). And what has almost made up for being on the road is this fabulous student hangout that I discovered on Chowhound - Hoagie Haven.

I don't really know what makes I good sub, but here are the things that Belly Buster & Hoagie Haven have in common:

• late hours: key for midnight cravings
• uber-fresh bread: delicious pillowy-soft goodness
• veggies: interestingly enough, both these shops offer the standard lettuce, tomato, onion, & hot peppers, but that is all. Not like the other big franchises that supply a laundry list of vegetables (green pepper, cucumber, black & green olives, etc.). A classic sub shop will focus on what counts not wasting their time on the small stuff
• mayo: it's probably just a bizarre coincidence, but both these joints spread their mayo on with a spreader versus depositing it via squirt bottle

I always try the shop's "specialty" cold sub. In places like these, it's usually the first item on the menu board. Or it is named after the store itself. Top it off with mayo, a little mustard, oil & vinegar, and salt & pepper - heaven in my belly!

I still have not managed to find my new favourite sub place close to our home in West Hartford. There used to be a Jersey Mike's 15 minutes away, but it has since closed :(

Five

Five: pumpkins carved
Five: bags of candy purchased
Five: o'clock was when I left work to get home in time for Halloween
Five: the number of trick-or-treaters that visited our house :(

I love Halloween. I think it's a fun low-stress holiday for everyone to enjoy. Unlike Thanksgiving & Christmas there is no pressure to create some Martha Stewart inspired meal. In fact, if you're one of those people that gives out homemade treats you should know that they are just going in the garbage because parents think you could be one of those child poisoning psychos and/or kids prefer store-bought candy.

Last year we had over 80 trick-or-treaters and I was hoping for a similar turnout. Unfortunately I was let down.

I can even list all the costumes this year (on one hand no less):

• 2 x spiderman
• superman
• cowboy
• some sort of black and grey caped crusader ( I suppose I was too crushed by our low turnout to care at this point)

Good thing Wal-Mart let us return our unopened bags of candy!

Anti-Room Service

I despise room service. When I travel I almost never order it. But the other night I had no choice. And in so many ways it reminded me of why I had made such a point of avoiding it.

The Place: downtown Atlanta
The Date: Sunday, October 21st
The Time: 10pm

Having just arrived into the city I was looking to grab a quick bite to eat and then head to bed. I was just looking for something light and simple. I figured Atlanta was such a world class city (yes I am still habouring a little resentment that Atlanta won the 1996 Olympic bid over Toronto) that it had to have something around to eat, even if it was 10pm on a Sunday (since there is no doubt that I would have a variety of delicious cuisines to choose from on a late-Sunday-night food run in Toronto).

I knew I was sunk when even the concierge had no recommendations for me. Even to grab some take out or whatever. I quickly hit the street to see if I could find anything suitable.

Now I rarely and I mean rarely get nervous walking in large cities alone in the evening. I have gone out for slices of pizza in NYC at who knows what hour of the night and late night Vietnamese in Dallas. I should stop here before I make Christopher nervous... But for some reason, when I was walking around Peachtree & Andrew Young International I didn't like it. So I decided to admit defeat and head back to the solace of my hotel room. So with my only other choice being the , I decided to order room service. Here is a picture of my "Confetti of Field Greens Accompanied by Crispy Potato Crostini"

Yum - salad from a bag topped with ridged potato chips. For $9.50 no less! This was definitely enough to keep me off room service for another decade.

Beat the Bank

The first thing we did when we began our whole home buying process was go to our bank to get "pre-approved" - which means nothing really, but that's a whole other story.

When we went in to the Bank of America to meet with a mortgage advisor we were introduced to the "Best Value Guarantee". In nutshell, if you are approved for a mortgage by the B of A and then decide not to close with them, they will give you $250.

Sound too good to be true? Well I am ecstatic to announce that we received our $250 cheque today! Of course the B of A doesn't make it *easy* for you to collect on their guarantee. But with a little legwork it becomes well worth the hassle, IMHO.

For any of you out there who stumble across this posting, here are the steps I went through to get our reward:

• Figure out how to apply for the redemption. Though the pamphlet that we were given at the bank doesn't have any details on how to go about collecting, a quick Google search reveals that you need to phone 800.870.3206 to answer a brief automated phone survey
• At the beginning of the survey they tell you that at the end they will provide the fax number and mailing address to send in a copy of your HUD-1 to prove that you actually closed and closed with another lender (in addition to giving them all the details they ever wanted to know about their competition). Note: write down BOTH the fax number and the mailing address. I planned to fax, so I only wrote down the fax number. But the fax number was bogus so I had to do the whole survey over again to get the mailing address
• Fax Number: 800.272.0562 When I first did the survey I swear the fax number they listed was 800.272.0576 which is disconnected and made me very cynical. However when doing the research for this blog post it seems to have been fixed, so I'm slightly less cynical than before)
• Mailing Address #1 Bank of America Best Value Guarantee, Attn: Pauly Bradshaw, 1375 North Highway Drive, Fenton, MO 63099
• Mailing Address #2 Bank of America Best Value Guarantee, Attn: Pauly Bradshaw, 1375 North Highway Drive, Fenton, MO 63026-1929
• Why 2 mailing address you ask? Well, the curious cat that I am, I was interested in knowing where this Bank of America location was and I looked up Mailing Address #1 on Google Maps. However, I was slightly confused when the zip code came up as 63026. So I looked up the zip on USPS.com and found it listed as 63026-1929 which matched Google Maps. Just to cover my bases I mailed a second letter to Mailing Address #2

And after 29 days of patience, my efforts were duly rewarded with a cheque in the mail for $250 :)

I Like Caulk

Some people look at old houses as so much work - I see ours as a puzzle. I am continually fascinated by the craftsmanship and intricacies of our home. In some instances "they don't build 'em like the used to" is quite true - many of our walls are a very solid lath and plaster and our foundation is a double-thick stone monstrosity. However our 20+ oil burning boiler leaves much to be desired in regards to heating efficiency.

This weekend I gained an appreciation for the double-hung sash window. Save for 7 vinyl replacement windows upstairs, all the windows in our home are original (read: cracked/loose panes, broken/missing sash cords, and painted shut/open). In an effort to keep this winter's heating oil bills to a manageable level (see aforementioned oil boiler) as soon as we moved in we began the first phase of our process of window rehabilitation.

Our windows have an outside track where winter storm windows as well as summer screen inserts fit. These tracks have carefully placed notches to help you get the window/screen in easily. I was probably doing it wrong before, but in every other place I have lived when I needed to remove the screens it was a struggle and usually ended up with me slightly bending the screen to get it in/out.

This weekend we focused on the storm windows, next spring we'll work on the screens (our home repair is definitely on an on-demand basis). We carefully removed 4 cracked storm windows which I will bring in to the glass repair shop tomorrow morning to be fitted with new panes ( I draw the DIY line at cutting my own glass). One of the storms had glass that was in good shape, except its seal to its metal frame had deteriorated. So we set off to Lowe's to buy some silicon caulk to seal it with. Mind you with so many choices found in the sealant aisle we have no idea if what we used is optimal (we didn't really do much research on this project), but it was inexpensive and it seems to be doing the job. I am not one to argue with either of these two scenarios, especially when they happen to coincide :)

For a first-timer I think I did a pretty good job with the caulking gun. I managed to keep the smearing of caulk on the window to a minimum and didn't wreck anything else in the process (of which there was a high potential since I was doing this on our living room floor!) So right now I am enjoying a personal high of DIY prowess, or could this be fumes from the caulk curing beside me...

PS. Thing brings the list of Tools My First House Taught me to Use to a grand total of 3: electric hedge trimmer, reciprocating saw, & caulking gun.

I put some new shoes on...

"I'm wearing my brand new shoes"

Tyson now wears shoes around the house. It prevents him from scratching the hardwood floors. Nancy wanted some sneaker-style ones with flames on them, but I was concerned about the quality of those ones. I have to admit, these ones aren't the most flattering. Maybe he'll get something a little more stylish for his next pair.

Tyson now bears an even stronger resemblance to his favorite toy, Camel.

Good things come in threes

This past weekend is tough to top. They say that good things come in threes and this weekend was no exception.

Golf: On a beautiful sunny fall day Christopher and I played in a end-of-season golf tournament for the golf league at my work. It was just best-ball so it was just for fun. We had a great time and both of us made some contributions to our team's shots so that was good. I sunk a 15 foot put for eagle on one hole and Christopher drove the green on a short par 4.

Home Improvement: As new homeowners our latest hobby is fixing all the deficiencies in our old house. And there are plenty to keep us busy! Christopher's parents were down for the weekend; his mom is a decorating fanatic and his dad is a keen handyman - a killer combination! While we were golfing they busied themselves with some chores around our home: hanging paintings, putting up the Roman shades that had just been delivered, fixing wonky light switches, weatherstripping our front door, assembling our new tool chest. The place is really starting to take shape and we can't thank them enough for all their hard work!I don't exactly know which mechanism local businesses use to get information on new home sales, but since moving in we have received several coupons and offers at our new house welcoming us into our new home. One of the coupons was 10% off at Lowe's so on Sunday the four of us headed off to make good use of it and filled two shopping carts with goodies for the house. And what was invaluable was having Chris's dad help us select what we needed - without him we would have had to do hours of research to find out which products suited our application.

Paolo Nutini: Last night we headed off to Tarrytown, NY for the Paolo Nutini concert. The Tarrytown Music Hall is a fabulous venue. It reminds me of the Music Hall on the Danforth in Toronto, but better! It seats only 843 people so it is a very intimate setting and the architecture on the old building has that shabby-chic sort of thing going for it. In between acts you can just head outside for a breath of fresh air and grab a soda or snack from the volunteer-run snack bar.
Tarrytown is a quaint little town - population of less than 12,000 I believe. But it's convenient for us to get to, which is nice and parking is easy to find. Within 2 blocks of the Music Hall here are several charming restaurants that look very tasty as well as the requisite homemade ice cream shop.The concert was great. I really enjoyed both of the opening acts: Jon McLaughlin & Serena Ryder and bought both of their CDs for $15.

It was fun to see Paolo perform live - and we had great seats too! His Scottish accent is much stronger in person - probably due to a combination of some pre-show drinking along with not being in a formal recording studio. When he spoke between songs (which was not often) the audience probably caught about 10% of what he said because he speaks very quietly and his speaking accent is extremely thick (as a sidenote it always amazes me how people don't have an accent when singing - bizarre).I'll definitely look for more shows in Tarrytown to check out. While Boston and NYC are fun for a weekend trip - Tarrytown is perfect for a dinner & show type evening.

The inlaws are coming!

Chris's parents are coming down for a visit this weekend to see our new house. I don't care how much of a neatnik you are, when your inlaws come for a visit you are BUSY getting things ready for their arrival.

This past week the UPS guy has delivered packages to our home Monday - Thursday with all sorts of things we have purchased online for the house.

Scrambling to get as much done as we could, here is what we managed to accomplish:

• weeded flowerbed and planted 6 mums & covered with mulch
• assembled bench and shelf for our entryway
• assembled and hung a train shelf in our bathroom
• swept up pine needles & miscellaneous debris from the driveway

And on top of this there was of course the standard laundry, cleaning, tidying, and grocery shopping to prepare for any houseguest.

All this being said you would think that I don't like to have people over. But in fact it's quite the opposite - I really enjoy playing hostess. And if nothing else it forces us to give the house a good cleaning!

Summer Summary

Wow it has been a long time since I have blogged. Same goes for the last time I have been to the gym. So as this post ends my blogging procrastination, maybe it will guilt me into returning to the gym also. Well, we'd better start off slowly - don't want to over-tire ourselves now. This post is a step in the right direction.

Here is a recap on our summer - I think I left off at the beginning of July.

July 4th
Christopher and I celebrated our first Fourth of July in the US this year. Each year one of my coworkers hosts the social event of the summer, which we were lucky enough to receive an invitation to (via the posters that went up around our office no less!). Americans sure to the Fourth up right. Lots of food, keg beer, and fireworks that would rival the displays put on by many Canadian July 1st cities. It was a small miracle that nobody was injured during the lighting of the fireworks - non-stop drinking all day long combined with matches and gunpowder - stand back!

House Hunters
Our landlords decided to move back into their home, which meant that we needed to find another place of residence. Which is not easy when you own a dog in West Hartford.

The real estate market looked somewhat appealing so we decided to see if we could find something in our price range to buy. Now I would never recommend looking for a house on a timeline. It was not fun.

As first-time home buyers we didn't really know what to look for in our first home so it was kinda funny to see us look at houses. We had a general idea of lot size, square footage, # of BRs, # of baths, etc. but we didn't really have strong opinions on quirky things in the house and how much they would drive us crazy.

I found myself getting attached to several homes and was heartbroken when they sold before we had a chance to put in an offer. But looking back now, I am ecstatic with the house we ended up buying. I honestly think I wouldn't be as pleased with any of the other houses that I had thought was perfect at the time. But Christopher just laughs when he hears this - he says that I would say this about whatever house. I guess that makes me an optimist?

Rest of July = Study Procrastinate Study Procrastinate
Since Christopher was preparing for the NY Bar exam at the end of July, for the rest of the month all he did was study like mad. And when he wasn't studying he was probably procrastinating from the studying that he should have been doing.

I also did my fair share of procrastinating. From packing - boy to I despise packing. But it's over now and we're not moving again for a long loooong time, so I can write about this without raising my blood pressure (see below for details).

Wedding Escape
The weekend before the bar exam I headed home to Toronto for friend's wedding, leaving Christopher with by himself to study and get stressed out before his exam. It's marital support like this that's the reason why we're still married - just kidding!

The wedding was beautiful and it was nice to visit friends and family (and all my favourite Chinese restaurants also).

SoCal Vaca
The day after the NY Bar exam Christopher and I brought the dog to his summer sleepover camp and the cat to her kitty spa as we escaped for our summer vacation to Southern California. My good friend from Hammertown (whom I have known since I was 3yrs old) invited us to his wedding in Orange County so we decided to make a trip of it since I had never been to Southern California before (except LA) and it had been a long time for Chris.

In typical Nancy and Christopher style, we just rented a car and drove around seeing and doing things recommended by our guidebook. We hit Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, La Jolla, San Diego, Palm Springs, Santa Barbara, and LA in about 11 days. And as can be expected, the weather was picture-perfect. Recommendations: boogie boarding in Huntington Beach, Baja Lobster restaurant in San Diego (not to be confused with the Rockin' Baja Lobster in the Gaslamp District), Getty Center in LA, sunsets in La Jolla and a Thai restaurant called Rama in the San Diego Gaslamp Distric with killer pad Thai!

August: Moving + Humidity = YUCKY
The month of August was a whirlwind. We purchased a home so we were busy shopping around for a mortgage, gathering supporting docs for the mortgage application (which is more painful if you have a short credit history in the US like I do), and several inspections of the property and the repairs that the Seller agreed upon.

Being the procrastinating type that we are, we didn't really prepare for our move very well. And by prepare I mean pack. We packed some things, like books, & CDs, but not much else... So when moving day came we worked until 3 am on moving day and then 4am the next day (after I had gone to work) shuttling our belongings to our new home. Laundry baskets, suitcases, and Rubbermaid Roughneck totes became our new best friends: fill with stuff in old house, put in car, drive to new house, empty contents onto floor of new house, repeat.

Christopher has an interesting perspective about the time spent on the entire move. If we had spent more time upfront packing more things, we could have spent less time on moving day. But the overall time spent packing + moving would be about the same. And with less boxes that means less time is spent taping them up, cutting them open, breaking them down for recycling...

Anyways, moving day sucked - like it has any other time I have moved (even company-sponsored moves aren't much more pleasant). But it is all a distant memory - ahhhh....

Bike Geeks

Christopher phoned me this afternoon at work sounding a little dejected. His bike broke on the way home today (luckily he was on our street when it happened).

Poor Christopher has to bike to his NY Bar exam prep course everyday (except when it rains and I give him a ride). It is so cute to see him ride off each morning with his backpack overflowing with books. He is the only one in the class (of ~60 people) that rides a bike each day. His first week a girl saw him walking in with his bike helmet and exclaimed "Don't tell me you ride your bike all the way here! Wow - that's so good". The next few days he noticed a few more bikes in the bike rack, but that was short-lived and now Christopher gets his choice of the prime bike-locking slots.

Anyways, today Christopher's rear derailleur made a nose-dive into his spokes. So I left work early to pick him and the broken bicycle up to be repaired. We took his bike to *exactly* the type of store one would want to have their bike repaired.

As soon as we walked in, one-by-one sales and service people came by to check out the bike and comment on which parts they all thought were salvageable. They were really into the whole thing - which was nice to see, but I couldn't keep myself from thinking these guys were taking this whole thing a little too seriously.

At one point, Christopher's bike was hanging from some repair stand thing with 3 guys crowded around inspecting the carnage. One guy kept asking Christopher all sorts of questions, determined to figure out how it happened. And unlike most bike shops I've been to, these guys were trying their hardest to keep the price down. They almost winced when they said that it was going to cost $90 to fix.

This was probably the best bike shop I've ever been to. I'm looking forward to our next trip there to pick it up :)

Chi-town

Last week I was in Chicago for work. People often say that Chicago and Toronto have alot in common. I can see some of the similarities. It is very clean and the Magnificent Mile is quite similar to Bloor Street.

There's also no shortage of great restaurants there. I had a nice meal at Frontera Grill as well as my new favourite restaurant - Shaw's Crab House. A place that serves seafood, has a fabulous oyster bar, and makes great sushi as well - I couldn't ask for anything more!

Surprisingly enough, I didn't get the opportunity to savour some Chicago deep dish pizza, and a Chicago-style hot dog. I'll save that for my next trip. Like I said - no shortage of great restaurants!

While in town some old colleagues of mine made the trip in from Naperville, IL to have dinner with me one night. The traffic in Chicago would put Toronto to shame, so I truly appreciate them making the trek in to see li'l ole me - thanks guys! And Chris's friend M was in town just for the day to attend the telco trade show I was working at, so that was a nice surprise as well.

Bean-town

This past weekend Christopher's friend G drove down from Toronto for a weekend visit. We don't get many house guests, so I had fun playing hostess.

On Friday night Chris & G headed out to Foxwoods to play some poker. And on Saturday G mentioned that he had never been to Boston, so we decided to drive in for the evening.

Christopher and I have lived in Connecticut for almost 10 months and we hadn't been to Boston once in this time! On the other hand, we have been into NYC a bunch of times.

Boston is a beautiful city. We drove to the Boston Common, parked there and just wandered around. The city has so much character and charm. We started off in a nice part of town filled with some high-end shops and hotels. Then we headed back through the Common to Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall Marketplace. And after that we walked to the North part of town, filled with so many little Italian restaurants that all look like they could be my next favourite hidden gem.

On the drive back G was going through the CDs we have in the car - which are mostly mine since Christopher is riding his bike to school this summer:

G: [picks up my Jesse McCartney CD] Who is this, Paul McCartney's son?
C: [laughing] No G, don't do it!

Ouchie!

I have a canker sore in my mouth right now and it's driving me nuts! These things totally suck. I think I have really low tolerance for oral pain. I seem to remember a lot of complaining and feeling sorry for myself whenever I had my braces tightened... And don't even remind me about my wisdom teeth - I was KO'd for over a week.

Christopher did a little online research about some things that have been linked to causing canker sores. One of the things he found was that a foaming agent in toothpaste, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS), has been known to cause canker sores (or aphthous ulcers) in people.

He then decided that I *might* be one of these types of people and headed off to the drugstore to buy us a new type of toothpaste - sans SLS. (yes I know, this guy will do anything to procrastinate from studying for the bar exam! I can't say I blame him though - I've seen the study materials, 6-7 books each with at least 1000 pages - yikes!)

I guess Christopher was tired of hearing me complaining about my canker sores yesterday and was kind enough to head back to the store to buy me some Anbesol (an oral anesthetic) to numb my pain. I have never used it before, but I have to say that it works fairly well. The only down side is that it wears of super fast.

The day when these things are all gone can't come soon enough!

Why is spinning in the dark?

First off, I'm not one of those super-hardcore spinners that wears the spandex cycling shorts and the clip-in shoes to spinning classes at the gym. However, I have on occasion frequented a spin class or two...

One thing about spinning perplexes me - why are spinning classes done in the dark? The only thing I can think of is that since spin classes are almost always setup in a semi-circle fashion, this means that some of the participants end up facing one other head-on.

My experiences with spinning have always had me getting quite the workout - sweating a fair bit and probably making funny faces as I agonize over the sprint sections (those always kill me - way more than the hill climbs). So, I'm thinking that spinning is done in the dark so people don't have to be self-conscious about others looking at them directly when they are struggling to climb to the top of some imaginary hill...

I guess having the room dark could also help spinners focus on the exercise and not the others in the class. And for the true cycling enthusiasts, maybe the darkness helps them picture themselves on the road or in a race? Plus, unlike step aerobics, there is no safety concern with having the class in the dark.

The other thing about spinning is that the music is fairly loud. This leads me to my final hypothesis about the dark beat-pumping classes - mystique. These blackened bass-filled spin classes make the workout seem like more than it actually is - pedalling a stationary bike!

I mean, as far as bike riding goes - the stationary bike has to be as boring as it gets. To jazz it up, they lower the lights, pump up the tunes. I've even heard of some clubs that have disco balls in their spin rooms as well as black light and glow in the dark bikes - sheesh!

Spinning is great in the winter or on a rainy day - but on good-weather days, a real bike ride outside (on a bike that actually takes you somewhere) is tough to beat.